Angst, Angst Everywhere

” Person A completely clad in black.
Somber quiet faces surrounding them as the walk slowly down the center isle.
Tears swelling in their eyes to the point that they can barely see.
They reach the casket centered at the front of the room, and gently touch the lid before gazing at the pale unsmiling face of Person A.
They let out a choked noise somewhere between a laugh and a sob before whispering through a tearful smile, “this isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to walk down the aisle to you.“
They have to be pulled away from the casket they begin crying so hard. ”

An angsty prompt if I ever saw one. And of course my angsty mind couldn’t let it go so I wrote this little thing to go with it. The fandom is Avengers/Criminal Minds a Bruce Banner/Aaron Hotchner pairing.

As suggested by the prompt the following snippets will have Major Character Death.

The room was filled with their friends and family. Everyone was dressed in black, the mood somber and quiet. The man stood at the back of the room, his power barely contained as he looked ahead of him towards the center if the room. Flowers were everywhere, a touch of beauty on a very ugly day.

The man started forward. His whole body was shaking on the inside as he taped down on his feelings. He walked slow, steady and with purpose. When he got to the front of the room he laid a hand on the casket in front of him.

“Damn you Bruce. This should have been so different. I should have walking towards you, to make those vows that we were so ready to make. Your damned experiments…” the man’s legs started to buckle and Steve and Bucky were on either side keeping him from falling.

Aaron couldn’t contain his power any more as he turned to marble. It matched the headstone that had been picked out as he gripped the side of the casket, not letting his friends pull him away.

“You made me love again. I can’t do this Bruce.” He finally buckled under the weight of his power and his grief. His sobs everyone felt like a living thing and no one knew what to do.

~~~~CM/AV~~~~

Then a friend of mine retaliated with this horribly angsty Aaron Hotchner/Spencer Reid snippett.

David Rossi stood and looked at the strong man who didn’t seem so strong at the moment. He was wearing black. He never wore black. Even though it went against the wishes, he’d worn black. Garcia, Prentiss, and JJ were all in purple. The woman who Dave had been introduced to as Greenaway was in red. Morgan was in white. Even Dave himself had dressed in pale blue. But he was in all black. Black suit, black tie, black shirt, black socks, black shoes. It hurt to see him.

There were two coffins at the front of the room and for all of people who had already left, it was the second, smaller one who garnered the most emotion. But for those that still remained it was neck and neck which one gave them the most grief. At the moment for the man in black, Dave was sure that it was the bigger one. He’d been at the back, paying his respect to those that were leaving. Now it was family only, where he could finally let go.

The man in black walked up the aisle, staring at the bigger of the two caskets. Morgan was there just off to the side ready to do whatever was needed. As he reached the casket, his hand wavered to open it up. He stopped though and just touched the spot where his face would be.

“This isn’t what I meant when I said I wanted to walk down the aisle to you.”

Dave felt the tears he’d been able to hold in the entire day start to fall.

Aaron Hotchner was a strong man who had finally been bent so much that he broke. The death of his lover and his son at the hands of George Foyet had broken him. He fell to his knees and started to cry. Dave wasn’t sure that he was going to come back from this. That Aaron was going to live past finding Foyet. He’d hang on long enough to kill the man and then he’d waste away. Aaron was too proud to kill himself outright but he’d die all the same.

According to the report, Reid’s face had been disfigured from the blast of the forty four that Foyet had shot before resorting to the knife that he’d used to make the fatal blows to both him and Jack. After getting back from Canada, Reid had gone ahead home to relieve Jessica while Aaron had gone into the office to finish up and file the team’s paperwork so they could enjoy a long weekend without having to come in. The call that had come in pushing them onto a case hadn’t been that odd. What had been odd was the fact that they hadn’t been able to get ahold of Aaron or Reid at all. Then Prentiss had gone to Aaron’s house where blood had been everywhere. Garcia had found them where they had all been dropped in Aaron’s car outside the closest hospital. Reid and Jack hadn’t made it off the operating tables while Aaron had only suffered minor head wounds from being knocked out after finding the bodies of Reid and Jack displayed for him.

To the rest of the FBI, Reid had moved in with Aaron to help him in the aftermath of Haley’s death. Jack had been young and Aaron needed a hand. To the team they knew that Reid had spent so much time with Aaron that they had fallen in love. Dave hadn’t known that some sort of wedding or at least an exchange of rings had been something they had talked about.

When Aaron started to sob so hard that it sounded like he was choking himself, Morgan stepped up and wrapped an arm around his waist, lifting him up. Prentiss moved to the other side as Morgan turned them to leave.

~~~~CM~~~~

And now, if you’ve followed me down this rabbit hole, here is another bit of angst. This time Criminal Minds/X-Men.

Remy stood at the back of the room never more grateful as he was in that moment for the color of his eyes. His focus was straight ahead. He didn’t want to look to either side of the room as he gently gripped the hand of the little boy next to him. He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to make that walk down towards the front but he knew it was expected of him. He was holding onto his charm so hard that it almost hurt. But he promised himself that he wasn’t going to let go, especially not in front of these people. He took a deep breath as he slowly walked towards the front of the room, the boy somber next to him.

He was clad all in black, even the coat he had wrapped around him was black.

“Rem, you don’t have to do this.” The man behind him rumbled low in his throat. The only one to have stood by him in recent times.

“Ya, I do Logan.” No smart comebacks, no jokes, no crazy antics. It wasn’t the time or the place for it. He let his eyes slide to the left of the room, the people who had taken him in, accepted him for who and what he was. He could feel that they wanted to go to him but he just shook his head and they sat back down and waited.

He didn’t spare a glance for those on the right of the room. He still felt so angry and betrayed by them. People he had thought were friends, family even, turned on him for a past that he had tried so hard to make-up for. They weren’t here for him, they were here for the man in one of the caskets at the front of the room. Closing his eyes to center himself once more he opened them and started forward. The boy following once again.

Every step was like a knife burying itself deeper and deeper inside him. When he finally made it to the front, he told the boy to go sit near JJ. When he was gone from Remy’s side that was when he finally let himself feel everything he had been burying.

Remy had been put on trial, memories ripped from him and his greatest regret laid bare. When he came home and the X-men threw him out he was angry and shattered. All he wanted to do was go to the one person that had never left him, that loved him no matter what happened in his life, Aaron Hotchner had always been there for him. He then laid a hand on the other casket and he shattered yet again. Spencer had been a surprise to him. There he stood, the love of his life on one side and their lover on the other, tears slid down his face as the heart he supposedly didn’t have broke into a million pieces.

When he got to DC he hadn’t heard. As he let himself in the house he shared with the agent and his son, Jessica, Aaron’s sister-in-law was there. She told him it was a bomb. Aaron and the BAU team had gone to New York on a possible case of terrorism. Spencer wasn’t even supposed to go with Aaron, it was a switch at the last minute. The trigger had been the car alarm. Aaron had been blown into the street, he was bleeding out and Spencer crawled to get to him. His legs had been severely damaged in the blast.

Remy had stormed into the BAU and demanded answers. Morgan had told him the rest of the story. Spencer had tried to keep Aaron alive, his long nimble fingers holding onto vital arteries in his back that had been severed. He was calling for help, begging, but none of the first responders would come. It was the BAU’s own protocols that held them back. By the time the threat had been assessed and they were allowed to go help both men had died. What was discovered was that a piece of glass from the window behind Spencer had imbedded itself in his thigh. He had bleed out while trying to keep Aaron alive.

“I know we were never gonna have de wedding you wanted Aaron not with Spencer…” The tears fell as his knees buckled, his hands still on the two caskets. “I don’ know what to do. You were my heart. I have nothing now. How do I care fo’ de boy? Dammit Aaron, de boy needs his Papa.” His voice lowered as he looked down at the ground. “I need you, I need you both.” He wrapped his arms around his waist and doubled over. He could no longer hold onto those bottled up feelings and the force of emotion that burst from him his everyone in the room. He didn’t care who was there as he let out a sob that broke everyone that.

When he felt strong, familiar arms come around him he looked up and frowned.

“Papa?” The word came out broken as tears fell even harder.

“Oui, mon fils,” Jean-Luc Lebeau kneeled next to his son and pulled him close letting the man break apart in his arms. After a few moments he pulled Remy up on shaky legs. “Come home mon petite. Bring de bebe.”